TANZANIA: ALL SMILES FOR CIVIL SERVANTS AS GOVT SET TO PAY ARREARS

DODOMA-- Civil servants throughout Tanzania have every reason to smile as their February salaries will include all arrears. The Minister for Finance and Planning, Dr Philip Mpango, announced here that by the end of February, this year, the government will pay arrears to 27,389 government workers.

He told journalists that 43.39bn/- had already been allocated for that purpose. The Minister said the payment comes after the government completed verification to determine genuine arrears owed to civil servants.

The government, under President John Magufuli, has been repeatedly promising that it will pay all arrears and today I announce the good news that all payments will be made along with this month's salary, Dr Mpango said. He said the exercise has established that only 34 per cent (43.39bn/-) of the initially demanded arrears amounting to 127.6bn/- were genuine, thus saving 84.2bn/- that could have been paid to unqualified employees.

It was also discovered that initially, the total number of workers demanding the unpaid arrears was 82,111 as per the Human Capital Management Information System (HCMIS), but the figure dropped to only 27,389 after verification.

The 27,389 civil servants who qualify to receive the payment include 15,919 teachers who are owed 16.2bn/-, which is equivalent to 42.2 per cent of total arrears and the remaining 11,470 workers who demanded 27.1bn/- which is 57.7 per cent of the total debt. The debts, some of them dating back to 2005, were a result of among others, acting capacity, salary increments and promotions.

Those who will be paid this February, according to the Finance Minister, are the ones who qualified to get the payment after the government scrutinised the names of all civil servants during a crackdown to iron-out ghost workers. For other payments, of those whose arrears date as far back as ten years ago, their names will be published in newspapers today (February 10),'' said Dr Mpango.

The Minister added that the exercise managed to strike off ghost workers on payroll; those who held fake certificates and all others who didn't deserve to be paid. Before the verification exercise - 82,111 civil servants were demanding 127.6bn/-. And of that ballooned figure 53,925 were teachers who were claiming 53.9bn/-, while the rest of the civil servants amounting to 28,186 were claiming 73.6bn/-.

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